Building the Right Managed Cloud

Some cloud hosting vendors would like businesses to forget the cloud runs on hardware. They pitch a “public cloud” or “private cloud” as if that tells you everything you need to know — but it doesn’t. SMBs have unique computing needs that can’t be solved by just throwing compute at them. Enterprises need managed services partners with the flexibility and experience to build a managed cloud tailored to their business.

The Public Cloud Isn’t Good Enough

The public cloud is popular because it’s cheap. Vendors run vast data centers and parcel out computing power by the unit. Their customers purchase as much as they need and run their company in server space allocated by the vendor. Their applications are run alongside other people’s applications, in a multi-tenant architecture designed to make efficient use of the host’s computing power.

The problem is, the public cloud doesn’t have true performance baselines; hosting companies under-allocate their resources, which can dramatically slow performance when demand is high. Additionally, big public cloud providers use the cheapest hardware available and don’t fix things until they fail. When your infrastructure slows down, you won’t know if traffic’s unusually heavy, or you’re about to suffer a major outage.

You can’t solve the problem by buying and dynamically allocating more space, either; complex data platforms like SAP HANA® need to be reset when more memory is allocated, which potentially means several hours of downtime. You may be able to mitigate unpredictable slowdowns and outages by buying extra resources ahead of time, but you won’t be able to prevent them.

Symmetry provides private managed cloud and hybrid cloud solutions for customers who need more stability and security than a public cloud can give. Our managed private cloud ensures containerization, separating your resources from other companies so that their usage won’t affect your performance. Our IT managed services team will keep your software patched and up-to-date and maintain the hardware running it. That means ultra-low downtime and consistent performance for your mission critical applications.

Businesses Need Customized Hybrid Cloud Solutions

Most managed private cloud vendors only use their own gear. They can furnish data center hosting for companies, but can’t connect onsite infrastructure to the network or manage the client’s own hardware assets. For companies that need on-premises IT infrastructure, this one-size-fits-all approach can discourage cloud migration or cause ongoing IT problems for those that choose to migrate.

There are many circumstances where an organization may need to use some of their own hardware. For example, a company may wish to keep an HR system or legacy installation running on an in-house server because of cost or compatibility concerns. Alternately, they might have an ERP landscape they wish to put in a managed cloud, but have another low-latency application that needs to stay onsite.

If managed private cloud providers can’t interface with your infrastructure, they can’t meet your needs. You’ll waste money working with a provider who won’t run your servers, or even lose access to a legacy silo server that they won’t connect to your network. If you have low-latency needs, you’ll have to invest in pricey, high-speed networks. Then, you’ll pay to move huge amounts of data back and forth between your cloud and your facilities, and you’ll still probably get unacceptable performance.

Symmetry understands that investment in cloud and IT architecture is a strategic business decision. Instead of forcing our partners to adopt our system, we work with them to develop hybrid cloud solutions that fit their needs.

Need to keep legacy hardware running for a few more years? We can forklift your servers over to our datacenter or run it in your facilities, providing managed services without imposing extra expenses. Need to run low latency apps onsite? We can connect your in-house servers to your cloud installation, forming a single network. Our managed services team will can build a custom cloud designed around your unique IT needs.

A High-Performance Private Managed Cloud Can Save You Money

Some cloud service providers try to sell clients on moving everything to pricey high-speed servers. But good IT architecture doesn’t mean providing maximum power everywhere; it means allocating more resources where you need it, and saving money where you don’t.

For example, your production, development, and quality assurance environments look similar, but they have extremely different resource requirements. Production environments are the core of your business, running mission-critical operations like ERP. They need to be able to handle lots of traffic from many users and perform complex real time analysis — particularly in cutting-edge environments like the SAP HANA cloud. To ensure they don’t become bottlenecked, providers need to provision plenty of memory and CPU power.

Development environments, on the other hand, exist to support production. They’re where technicians patch and repair infrastructure, customize software and develop new applications and configurations. They don’t have to cope with the demands of running transactions or real time business analysis, so they’ll work perfectly well with much less power and memory.

Quality assurance environments — where upgrades are tested before being put into the production — also have their own set of needs, distinct from production and development. They have to mirror production spaces, so they need a similar amount of disk space. However, because they don’t have the same number of users, they won’t impose the same CPU or memory demands. A managed cloud provider that assumes a quality assurance environment’s needs to be identical to a production environment will waste huge amounts of memory and processing power.

Symmetry believes that businesses shouldn’t pay for Cloud and IT Infrastructure they’re not using. Our SAP-certified teams will carefully audit your hardware requirements across different use cases, creating cloud solutions that precisely meet your needs. We’ll evaluate each component for KPIs, and allocate an extra 10% over expected computing and memory needs, reserving 30% of system resources to guarantee there’s no performance impact from other customers. And as your business grows, we’ll make sure your enterprise cloud is ready to meet the new demands.

Cloud Compliance Requires Smart Infrastructure

Compliance regulations can put restrictive, expensive requirements on any part of your infrastructure that processes or stores covered information. As a managed cloud partner, Symmetry can reduce the cost and complexity of security and compliance while keeping your data safer. The key is a custom enterprise cloud designed to logically and physically separate compliant data.

PCI compliance, for example, has strict requirements for any server that stores credit card transaction data; the data needs to be in a dedicated server without multi-tenancy, and that server needs to be protected from the outside world — through physical access safeguards, as well as hardware and software controls.

Our custom managed cloud separates PCI data from other data, taking most of your infrastructure out of the scope of PCI compliance. PCI data will be stored in its own server, surrounded by a cage in our secured data center, and connected to your cloud (and only your cloud). This will keep costs down for the rest of your managed cloud, while protecting you from costly compliance violations. And our 24-hour detection and incident response team will monitor your entire network, providing an extra layer of security.

The Right Managed Cloud is Built, Not Allocated

Successful businesses put thought and energy into everything, from high-level strategy to the color of the logo. Your IT managed services partner should put the same attention to detail into designing and running your cloud and hosting solution. Don’t settle for a provider that parcels out units of resources and hopes for the best.

Choose Symmetry for a managed cloud built to fit your needs from the ground up.

Autumn Salama is the Senior Director of Technical Operations at Symmetry where she is responsible for Symmetry’s Implementations and 24x7 Support Services team. Autumn has been in the data center and cloud infrastructure business for over a decade - managing teams responsible for everything from critical infrastructure operations, service delivery, technical support, marketing and product management. Autumn leverages her diverse experience to provide superior customer service to Symmetry Clients throughout the service delivery and on-boarding process as well front line support outside of business hours.